4 Cool Décor Ideas in the Heat of Summer
June 07, 2017 00:00

Summer is just around the corner. And while that may mean a brighter sun, better weather, and more kids running around the house, finding ways to help give your home a breezy décor to match can be tough.

That’s why we’ve put together these four interior design tips for bringing in this bright and cheery season with style.

A season for natural light

The bright months of summer are no time to isolate your home from the outdoors. The best memories from this season come from taking a trip to the beach, going on a hike with your family, and hosting a barbecue. That’s why, in order to take full advantage of the summer sun, you need to optimize your home for maximum natural light.

While putting in a new skylight might not be in the forecast right now, there are a few things you can do to maximize the natural light your home is already receiving.

Keeping windows and surfaces clean and shiny let light not only enter your space unimpeded, it’ll also help boost the shine of your interior surfaces. That means the light you already get is more easily spread to the darker corners of the room.

You can also give your home a new coat of indoor paint to help disperse that sunny cheer. While white paint is of course going to distribute light the most out of all the possible colors, a glossy finish on darker shades can make an enormous difference in how well natural light bounces around your home.

Give your home some color

One of the best ways to bring in the bright and cheery nature of the season is by changing your home’s décor to match it. The lush greens of the grass and deep blues of a cloudless sky out the window all look much more vibrant when viewed from a room with colors to match.

That’s why many design aficionados are turning their home into an homage to the outdoors by adding bursts of bright azure and turquoise along with harlequin and malachite green accents. These bright hues will help keep your space feeling cheerful and airy all season long!

But don’t fall under the false impression that only bright colors should be used during the summer months. In fact, sometimes keeping your tones dark and cool can offset the blinding light of the sun and can even add some surprisingly attractive contrast as well.

Curb the heat with cool curtains

While natural light is one of the keys to creating a comfortable and beautiful space, there can always to too much of a good thing. And that goes double for the blazing hot temperatures that summer can bring.

But before you go out buying any old draperies, you should know that not every curtain is created equally when it comes to heat blocking. In fact, there are several factors that go into which curtain will end up keeping your house the coolest.

Color and material of course are two of the most important (white and close-weave are best) but ensuring your draperies are long enough to reach the ground is another great heat blocking technique.

You can also keep your drapes sealed at the side and bottom to help keep that stifling heat from detracting from the sweet relief of air conditioning. More than anything though, keep an eye out for draperies that have white plastic backings. These can help eliminate up to one third of all heat entering through the windows!

Use smart lighting to get your light right

Finally, your interior lighting may be playing a bigger role in the feel of your home than you realize. Color temperature, for instance, is the measure of how yellow or blue your light is. Incandescent bulbs tend to give off a warmer (more yellow) light than the cooler (bluer) light of fluorescents and some LEDs.

And though the soft and cozy light of a romantic evening may be great for that particular occasion, it’s not doing you any favors in the scorching dog days of mid-June. But rather than switching over every single bulb in your home for some cooler light, many modern smart bulbs let you change your bulb’s color, right from your smart device.

Embrace summer with these 4 tips!

Do you have any other tricks to keep your home cool this summer? How are you changing the look and feel of your home during these hot months? Let us know in the comments below and head over tothe Flux Smart products page to get your home cooled down today!